VISION QUESTING (edited 10/31/94) Rev. HPs D.M. PURPOSE Vision Questing is a form of passage from one phase of life to another, and can be considered one way of dedicating or initiating yourself to your chosen Path. Yet whereas in Wicca such a Rite is an affirmation of work already accomplished, a Vision Quest is itself transformational work. True, it is affirming a commitment you already made to yourself and your relationship with Source; but in it you will be putting yourself through an ordeal of your own making to test your mettle and refine your perceptions and other abilities. Many consider the successful completion of a Vision Quest to be a further acceptance by Source of your chosen Path. In the case of a full-fledged Quest in which your very survival is at stake, then living through the experience is a part of that Blessing. At the center of the Quest, however, is a searching for Vision, and this is the Blessing we will be looking for during our modified Vision Quest. The process is also a signal to the rest of your being that your spiritual self has chosen to take this new course of action. It is a way of orienting your secular self to the ways your spirit wishes to pursue, and can also be a time of questing after methods of bringing these ways of being more seamlessly into your secular life. The Quest can then serve as a space in which to inaugurate a new discipline or course of study you wish to pursue or of finding ways to make this work harmoniously with the whole of your existence. Sometimes the Quest is a form of death because it is a passage from one part of your life to another. This may be felt subtly by way of feeling renewed and refreshed, or dramatically by way of having some inner core issues challenged and brought to light. The determination and courage you bring to bear in undergoing this process will further it along, and the fireside council at the Quest's end will also help you to integrate and understand your experience and bring as much of it back with you into the next steps you take. THE PROCESS The phases of a typical rite of passage have been described as severance, threshold, and incorporation. In the first, you ready yourself for being by yourself by slowly detaching from the ordinary world around you and your usual habits. This opens the inner doorway and cues your subconscious mind to prepare you for the rite. In the threshold stage, you pass through the veil of everyday consciousness into the place between worlds, the realm of the symbolic and archetypical, and let your spirit guide you to those areas where you will gain the most growth and insight. Incorporation is that processing piece in which you re-member the rite and the visions you had in it, decompress from the intensity of the focused work, and gather yourself back together to carry on. Severance Meditation, journaling, physical discipline such as yoga, and fasting are all effective means to begin the separation from mundane to arcane reality. You are exercising the "muscles" of your psyche through these methods and preferably digging deep to look at your hopes, expectations, intentions, and even fears. Indeed, some of your expectations may be the basis for some of your fears in that you may be poised to chastise yourself if what you expected to happen does not. The Quest is not about finding a new way to denigrate yourself. What is supposed to happen will happen, and will be according to your own specific needs and the particular buttons your spirit feels you are ready to have pushed. As a matter of fact, with the possible exception of any precognitive Visions you have had, it is an excellent sign if your Quest is filled with surprises and only vaguely resembles your preconceived ideas about it. The group process prior to the Quest is another vital part of the Severance and preparation phase of the experience. We have come together to support each other as well as to have just this many faces looking in their own, unique directions, asking original questions, and discovering personal answers. Tips for what's working for you or not can be shared during the group meetings, and questions asked of your Teacher-Guide. Describing what this Quest means for you is important to gain clarity for yourself and likely to spark ideas or parallel feelings in others. Millions of people have undergone Quests before you, millions will undergo them after you, and while your experience will be distinct and unique, it will not be outside the realm of the collective experience of Questing. You needn't feel shy or weird about what you are feeling and experiencing, and the more the group as a whole can trust each other and the process, the deeper it will be for everyone. Fear, for example, is a very common and normal symptom of the Severance phase of the Quest. This is also a very healthy and desired piece of what can and should be shared in the group and explored in your meditative and journaling processes. Archetypically, the Vision Quest is a little death and like sickness is ultimately a preparation for that final Rite of Passage. Counterbalancing the fear may be the call of the past, your habits and creature comforts which look ever more attractive as the day of the Quest draws near. The status quo may loom large and try to motivate you to find reasons not to participate in the Quest. You can view these responses as your Inner Trickster, a sort of devil's advocate trying to seduce you to remain in your staid ways. Confront these intimations directly. Draw them out. Carry on a journal dialogue with the piece that is trying to hold you back. As I suggested earlier, your expectations may be playing heavily into this fear. Every previous experience you have ever had of not living up to your expectations, of "falling short" of your goals or "failing" in something may come back to haunt you. This is one of the challenges of the Quest, and one of the very things your spirit has brought you to this point to confront. As you look at these things, your Trickster may deflect the fear to something else to distract you. It may find all sorts of things you need to do that weekend; stir up a crisis at home, work, or school; or make you susceptible to catching colds. Stay healthy, take lots of Vitamin C & B Complex, fast wisely, and stay tuned to your body's signals. Rest when you are tired, but exercise when you are fatigued. Play when you are stressed, but do reflective work when you are frustrated. And keep in mind that the fear that you experience during this portion of the Questing process will far out-distance any fear you experience during the Quest itself. Honor your fear, because it is a good gauge of how much this Quest means to you and what potential depths of transformation your psyche holds in store for you. Also remember that the sign of a truly courageous person is not one who does dangerous undertakings without fear, but who overcomes fear and acts wisely but without being unduly restrained by fear. It is said that healthy fear is the mark of one about to receive power, and in part this is because you are aware that with new levels of power, you will also have new responsibilities and, since you are experiencing fear because of it, you will tend to use this power responsibly. Very importantly, too, if there are fears which indicate real reasons why you should not do the Quest at this time, listen to them carefully, as well. If you are diabetic, fasting is probably not a good idea and you need to be sure to bring your insulin. If you are coming to the Severance period in a highly unstable psychological frame of mind, this is likely not a good time for you to be further trying yourself. And so on. The key here, even if you must forego the Quest experience now, is to take advantage of the opportunity to look at yourself honestly and get past ego issues of pride and falsehood. This in itself is a major undertaking, and strengthens your will which will benefit you whether you need it to deal with the Quest or with secular life. A strong will paired with clear and honorable intentions is always a good thing and will bolster positive self-esteem, a wonderful gift from the process of the Quest. As the day of the Quest approaches, be sure to take care of your personal needs well in advance. Gather together the tools, food, and other resources you plan to bring with you a few days beforehand so that you don't need to worry about them. Finish up any business that needs to be dealt with as much as you can so that you can leave yourself the last day or two to focus on your in-gathering of self and consciousness. It is suggested that taking yourself out on a walk through Nature the day or weekend before the Quest is a good part of preparation, and I would encourage you to do so. Letting yourself enjoy the world without the pressure of the Quest will help you to appreciate it while you pass through the Rite, and you may be shown important signs or meet new nature allies while you give yourself this time. Ideally, this Medicine Walk takes all day, so pack what you need to eat in the afternoon, something to write with, any tools you might want to use in ritual, and set out at dawn. Let Nature be your guide. The "outer" Nature of the wilderness or beach may draw you along through your curiosity, and your inner Nature will urge you into the right actions for you at that time. Listen to both of these Natures and the messages they have for you at this time. Write down significant messages or symbols once you have experienced them so you have them as part of the record of your passage. Don't overexert yourself, however, or challenge your survival skills on this walk; just Be. Break your fast after noon so you don't over tire but do get a sense of what it will be like to fast from midnight until sunset on the day of the Quest. I would advise that you do this walk the weekend before our last group meeting before the Quest so you can bring your experience back to us to share. For fasting, the best suggestion I've ever heard is to slowly remove types of food from your diet. The heaviest yin and yang foods should go first, such as red meat and alcohol. Then white meats and sweets. Then complex carbohydrates like potatoes and grains. Then non-juicy fruits, vegetables, milk, nuts, and oily food. If you intend to do this progressive fast prior to the Quest, you should be at the stage of eating only juicy fruits and drinking lots of juice and water on the day of the overnight. We will be sharing a meal around the campfire, and this should give you the physical strength you then need to get through the next day's Quest. When you exit at the other end of the Quest, be sure to be gentle with your stomach and slowly reintroduce food. I highly recommend avoiding raw carrots at first if you've undergone an intensive fast! Finally, depending on how much death-severance material has come up for you, you may want to take time to visit with people who've been important in your life up to this point to create peace and understanding between you. A very appropriate exercise for this type of preparation process is the cord-cutting meditation in which you envision each of your chakras, note the cords that lead from them to other people, places, events, or things, and let go with love those which are black or otherwise unhealthy looking or feeling. Replace them with psychic connections to life-affirming sources. Most of all, do what feels right and honor your process. Threshold The full spectrum of possibility stretches before you on the eve of the Vision Quest. The crickets chirp, the frogs and toads croak, and the fire crackles and lights the faces of your fellow quests. The talk is friendly, yet filled with anticipation, a nervous laugh or two, and your companions are at once eager and reluctant. You are about to test yourselves, and it is best that you enter into this, like any sacred activity, with "beauty and strength, power and compassion, honor and humility, mirth and reverence," as the Charge of the Goddess advises. One by one, your fellows leave the circle of light around the fire and go off to begin their solitary journey with a night alone in their bedrolls. Darkness surrounds you and your journal and a pen are nearby. Hopes, dreams, aspirations, and doubts fill your mind while adrenaline flows through your veins. Now is a good time to remember the Deep Relaxation meditation we have done each time we have come together. Breathe relaxation into your body, and breathe out tension. Notice the thoughts swimming through your mind and let them go, focusing on deepening your tranquillity. Ask your psyche to bring you dreams to begin your journey; ask this of yourself three times, and float off into the Dreamtime. Most likely, twice during the night, you will be gently woken. The first time, it will be to let you know that it is time to move to the altar tent to sleep through the last watch shift before your own. Bring your journal with you so if any private thoughts need writing while you're away from your private space, you can do so. The second time you are woken it will be time for you to take your place by the fire. Center yourself and gaze quietly into the fire. Listen for the night sounds, feel the breath of the Earth all around you. Note whatever you observe outside or inside yourself in the group's watch log, which will serve as one way for us to come back to center as a circle and to weave together our story as questers. At the end of your turn, you will wake the person sleeping in the altar tent, go rouse the next person for the watch, and return to your bed for the rest of the night. When you awake for the morning, do so slowly. Write down whatever messages or images have come to you during your sleep, or whatever has first come into your mind as you awoke. Relax your way into the day, looking out on each moment anew, with the fresh eyes of a child, filled with curiosity and wonder. Throughout the day it will be important for you to do as Spirit moves you. If you are unsure of whether Spirit or subconscious compulsions are driving you, quiet yourself, turn your mind to other things, and if the prompting returns three times with clearer and clearer Vision, follow your Dream. If you are ever uncertain of whether something you are thinking, feeling, or hearing, is untrue, you can try this test: form a circle with the thumb and forefinger of one hand. Insert the thumb and forefinger of the other hand into this opening, and state clearly the image or idea in question while exerting outward pressure on the circle. If your "okay" sign remains intact on the first hand, the thing is true, the answer is yes. If it flies apart under the pressure of your second hand, the answer is no. You are now balanced halfway through the doorway into the Quest. All that you once were lies behind you; all that you will be lies in the beautiful, unexplored mindscape before you. You will not hear the door open or close behind you, so you may want to formalize the crossing in some way, such as smudging yourself, asking the Guardians to guide and protect you, singing a song of thanksgiving, or finding a comfortable spot to welcome the rising sun. Traditionally, you would set out with a buddy and then separate halfway between your Questing sites, where you would set up a boundary of stones. Because we are doing a modified, group Quest, your noisemaker of bells, a drum, or whatnot are your aural boundary stones. Their sounding will let others know that you are approaching and give those sitting quietly the chance to sound theirs as well so you do not come too near. Other than this, you Quest in silence, seeking to hear the voices of your inner self and Spirit within that silence, as you also watch for the signs and sights that may be given to you. Another piece we are modifying in this Quest is the creation of a stone pile to communicate your continued survival to your buddy. In place of this, we have the group watch log, which serves to weave together our individual paths, give us a couple of disciplined times to anchor spirit into the physical act of writing, and yet also open us up to expanding our powers of observation and increasing our awareness of the interconnectedness of our paths. The log will be a symbol of our common bonds and an object lesson in the truth that no matter how unique our Paths, they flow together into a pattern. At first, you may find it impossible not to pursue tasks you set out for yourself to accomplish, duties to perform to fill the endless hours stretching before you. One of the things you may learn is the illusion of time, and how all of time is now. Listen only as you have to the taskmaster inside your head, and know that sooner or later your inner wisdom will remind you that you are looking for richer sustenance to feed your soul. Let go the worry about filling up time and space and let yourself discover. This absence of busy-work is behavior on a par with fasting, if you have chosen to do this. On the traditional Quest, you would go three or four days without food; today, you are going less than 24 hours, and so it is even more important to cleanse yourself of "junk food" activities. The very absence of meals to distract you and divide your day into segments will help you dislodge habits, and the more willfully you pursue this, the more you will open yourself to newness. The combined lack of food and routine ally to encourage you to notice Nature's rhythms and quiet speech. You will organically slow down as physical strength must be replaced with spiritual perseverance. As all of Nature may speak to you, so one particular spot may speak most strongly to you. Go and find out why it is calling to you. Wherever it is, it is sacred ground. Whatever is there, there will be something for you to learn from it. However, there may well be a specific reason why you were summoned to a particular spot, a certain stone, flower, or tree which has awaited your arrival. Except for your second turn at the council fire watch, you needn't worry about time or fulfilling any responsibilities to anyone save your Self. You may find, however, that you are drawn to doing certain ancient and time-honored acts of ritual, such as prayer. Search within you for your truest, most meaningful prayers. Remember what you have discovered about what prayer means to you, and yet see whether there is something deeper beyond that. Certain words of power may be given to you, and these are one of your gifts from the Quest. They may be just one word, which can serve as a touchstone and source of strength, or they may be a chant, song, or poem which you can sing for your Self to bring you deeper into your Quest and which you may choose to share with the group during the council after the Quest. Whatever it is, let it come to you (w)holy, and explore all its nooks and crannies of meaning and power. One of the words of power which may come to you during the Quest is a new Spirit name. Some say that the name you were given at birth was one put upon you by your parents without your knowing; others say you whispered it in their ears. Now you have come farther along your Path and may find that you have transformed beyond the ability of your previous name to identify who you are and what you are about. Be vigilant to hear this name, be quiet and unconcerned about finding it. If it comes, you will know, for it will run through you like a current and may make you want to run, jump, and dance with the joy of truth and affirmation. The name may come to you in your dreams or meditations, while gazing apprec- iatively or spacily into Nature, or in the simple act of walking. The wind, the rustle of the trees, the cracking of twigs under you may speak the syllables of your name, or a nymph Nature Spirit may speak it directly into your mind. It may come from signs or omens, from the actions Spirit moves you to do, or abruptly while your mind is occupied with writing. It is said that it is vital to being able to hear your name that you move through Nature and be one with Her in a way that is ironically beyond words. What you are listening for is the name your Mother Earth would call you as your most intimate, primal, and observant of mothers. To be ready to recognize your name when it is spoken, you must be able to recognize Spirit beyond form, for if all you see is an ant or a cloud, you will hear only what you expect to hear from an ant or a cloud. Whether they speak a name to you or not, the act of transcending the boundaries set up by our civilized words between you and the ant will be an act of healing, of reclaiming the birthright lost to humanity when it decided that it was supposed to rule over Nature instead of be at-one-ment with Her. Whether or not you discover your name, the act of knowing yourself and observing who you are deeply enough to consider a Naming brings yourself into closer alignment with your Self, into peace with your Shadow, and into clearer Vision of what you may Be. Another ritual act you may wish to perform is a ceremony. Once again, the crucial component here is bringing out your own truth and acting in a way that is most meaningful to you. As with the Quest as a whole, whatever you do will be right for you at this time, and the important thing is that you carry out your ceremony with the whole of yourself. It is one step on the Path that is uniquely and souly yours, an artwork which revels in the joy of connecting yourself with what is deepest and most sacred within you and around you. Absolutely whatever feels like right action to you is what you should do for yourself, whether that means setting up your own circle and dancing nude within its bounds (out of sight of the road, of course), painting your face with natural dyes, or offering your hair to the Air, Earth, Water, or Fire: follow Spirit. One suggestion: let it be simple. Let each of your actions be simple, straightforward, and true. The Quest and your questing are best served not by finding ways to keep yourself busy and by finding ever-more complex ways to stimulate your mind, but by getting down to the basics of who you are within Nature and Spirit. The whole Quest is a stilling of the senses, and letting go and spilling out, so that you may be filled again with natural strength and beauty. The idea here is not to be like the gold miner, greedily filling sack after sack with nuggets, but to be more like the happy wanderer, stopping to pick up only those things which truly catch your attention and speak to you. Regardless of how you cry for vision, a helpful image to keep in mind is that of Source observing you and weighing your being to see how you balance out. Are you asking for a gift selfishly, or are you seeking cleansing and strengthening so you can be a fuller participant in community? Are you seeking power to hoard to yourself, or are you asking to serve as a channel of Divine gifts into your circle of humanity? As you may have noticed in prayer work before you chose to Quest, it is often the request which will benefit others through you which is most readily granted. In trying to become one with Source, and in acknowledging our own divinity, we are also taking on the sacred role of nurturing the Creation, of which our fellows are a part. Remember to stay in the flow of give and take throughout your Quest. Thank your benefactor -- whoever or whatever that may be -- for any gifts you receive in an appropriate and respectful manner. This is much like the libations we have poured back out to the Earth after each of our feasts as a group; you will find other parallels and other ways of reciprocating. In other words, leave a little something of yourself with Nature for what She gives you. Value whatever is given to you as Vision, for regardless of its weight or magnitude, each Vision is a gift, suited perfectly to who you are, what your capabilities are, and where you are in your development. The Vision may be precognitive, it may be a sudden burst of energy, it may be a poetic trance, or a symbol. All Vision is wisdom, and all ultimate wisdom transcends the particulars of reality to touch on the reality beyond form. The final piece of Vision on the Quest will be the relieved realization that you survived the challenge to arrive at where you re-emerge. The risks have been met, the experience lived as fully as you could, and you have changed forever. As you return through the threshold, you will not hear the door close on the Quest any more than you heard it when you entered. Whether you are aware of the power of what you have been given or not, the universe and Powers That Be have taken notice of the gift you gave of yourself and the intentions you wrapped with your actions. The magical synchronicity of the ebb and flow will not be dammed up by your departure from the Quest; in fact, many of its results will be felt after you leave the council fire and welcoming circle. As a very young person, you will have helped to mold what your adult life will look like; as an adult, you will have made important steps toward refining your life's work; and as a crone/sage, you will have shaped the way you will serve as Elder Teacher to the community and, more certainly than your younger companions, prepared yourself for the final threshold of life. As with any time you go out to co-exist outdoors with Nature, Her body should be left at least in as good condition as you found it, and preferably better. By cleaning up after yourself and restoring the natural order, you are ceremonially completing the cycle of work you have done and paying the best tribute you can to Earth for the gifts you've received. If you did decide to construct a circle of stones, you may chose to leave the cardinal points marked, but otherwise disperse the stones back into their scattered ways. You may wish to say a final prayer of thanks, but then remove yourself firmly and with resolve back to the council fire. Be reborn with determination, not hesitance, for to be reluctant to return to community is not to trust in the Visions or be ready to share them in the Spirit they were given. One way that is suggested for assuring that you flow out after the Quest as well as you received during it is to make a conscious effort to give of yourself to every person you meet, and this will keep that flow going for you. You can begin as soon as you enter the circle of the council fire. Incorporation The return to the group around the council fire is like crowning during your birth: you are almost ready to emerge, but not quite. It is a very important step in the Questing process, and will help determine how you proceed with integrating your experience of the Quest into your life, and how much depth and insight you will gain from it. The council will serve to help you re-center and ground yourself before you take your first steps in the community afterwards, and hopefully help you face that community with the same eagerness with which you face the Quest, full of dreams and a willingness to share of yourself. The Visions you received will not be complete until they can be brought to fruition back outside the Questing environment. As we noted of crying for Vision, the point is not so much to build yourself up, as it is to enrich you so you can better partici-pate in community. If you thought the Quest was hard, you have an even more difficult row to hoe in bringing that Vision to the people, into a society which is only slowly coming to value the worth of these experiences and which is desperately clinging to the old status quo it knows, even though it also now knows that this has not been an especially healthy way. You come, as a child newborn into the world, trailing streams of glory -- the Blessings of Source -- behind and all around you, and a key to gifting others with these Blessings will be figuring out a way to do so that is not going to overwhelm them. Just as your physical birth was difficult, so returning to the company of others will be. You have been alone with yourself, Nature, and Source for some time now, and contact with others may be painful. If fear or resentment well up within you, bring yourself back in your mind to the special moments of the Quest, and bring back to the present the sense of the sacred you experienced there. Let its mantle of security and grace enfold you and give you strength and courage, and view the life you are returning to with the new eyes you were given, yet also with a new purpose in your tasks. Don't let yourself be drowned by the mundanity of day to day living; try once in awhile to see the little things in the same way you saw details on the Quest, and find new meaning and a new center there. Marrying the inner with the outer, the intuitive with the logical, the sacred with the mundane is integrally part of the incorporation. The process begins and continues with carrying on a dialogue between that which is beyond words and that which is known, and the council fire is intended to give you a boost in that direction. As much as you can and feel prepared to do, share what happened for you. Explore what it meant for you, and ask, if you wish, for the others to share how your visions impact them. As in the preparatory phase, the facets of insights shared may help to round out your understanding, and will certainly help each of us have a fuller experience of the Quest. You may even want to gift the group with a brief ritual to share the inner wisdom of your Vision, and this, too, will help you find ways to express what you now know without words. It is suggested that rather than isolating yourself when you re-enter community, you try to reach out to others by hugging them, sharing meals, and perhaps also finding a companion with whom to share some of the gifts of your Questing. Know too, that just as your choices were correct in the Questing, they will continue to be correct and the right things for you to do when you have completed the Quest. One of the most difficult things may be that in spite of your best efforts, those around you are reluctant to hear what you have to share with them, for what you have braved to do challenges deep places inside of them; be confident that in just living the changes you have undergone, they are rippling out to benefit everyone. Truly, living your Visions rather than trickling their power away through talk is the key to manifesting them. Although you may meet resistance, at first existing in the vim and vigor of your Visions will probably be easy: the momentum and amassed energy from the Quest will goad you on. Your whole body may feel refreshed, your mind alert and aware, and those Visions are quite clear to you. As time goes on, though, it may become somewhat trickier to retain your commitment to the Vision and the purposes you saw for yourself during the Quest. Habits will wear away at the freshness, routine will dull your clarity, and the doubts projected on you by the unaware may tire you. You may find it helpful in undergoing the transition to keep journaling and asking and answering questions about what you discovered on the Quest: Who are you? Why are you here? What were some of the most significant things you did on the Quest, why, and why were they important? What was unpleasant? What did Shadow Self reveal? How can you bring this back to your community and your life? What do these things mean? and so on. Refresh yourself often in the fountain of memories from the Quest, and many of the changes it wrought will come organically, with little or no effort. But that does not mean that it will get any easier to live in the two worlds you now know exist: the archetypal, visionary, shamanic world that you experienced in threshold, and the stereotypical, pragmatic, mundane world in which much of your life is lived. Although confusion, doubt, and resistance are all part of the usual process after Questing and signify that you are wavering between the two worlds, it is important not to stay stuck there, but go on. When you're feeling spiritually dry, take time to replenish the inner vision in ways that feel meaningful and powerful to you; when you notice that the outside world is being neglected, make your participation in that more meaningful, and it will not dehydrate you so often or so quickly. Finally and continually, thank your self for giving yourself this lifelong gift, and partake of it often. Blessed Be.